I think that police accountability is one issue that is not unrelated to bike advocacy. COPA has had multiple interactions the past so many years, but in some ways it's just a rebranding of the same flawed structure. They ultimately make a recommendation and the real power is in the police board.

When I see lack of enforcement of bike lane regulations, lack of prosecution of drivers who attack or run over bikers, I see the harm done by lack of accountability.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Toni Preckwinkle is the only one proposing to restructure the police board so that they would be appointed by a civilian oversight board. So that COPA wouldn't be as toothless as they are now.

I dont think shes proposing this out of any love of biking or bikers, and I will submit that she has been a disappointment when it comes to biking advocacy. But when I see things like the posts here of drivers attacking bikers, and we have photos, plate numbers, and the cops are doing nothing about it. When I see the who's parking in the bike lane thread, and never any tickets on these cars, I think lack of police accountability should be important to us.

Good points but I dont know that it's a zero sum game. I think the police have been on a "working strike" in their own little protest of increased calls for accountability. Which ironically tends to prove their own lack of accountability. If I took a working strike at my job I wouldn't last there long.

Yeah I've heard all of that. I think it all boils down to "accountability is hard". But we need the political will to hold CPD to a higher standard. A higher standard is not unachievable, theres just been a lack of real political will to get it done. Which goes back to the police board structure and the inherent flaws with it- history has shown that you cant trust the police to police themselves. I think the proposals to add real teeth to a civilian oversight board is the best solution that has been proposed. Only one candidate has proposed it, which is why the police community is likely going to vote for the other candidate (Lori).

"Lightfoot also cited her work as head of Chicago’s Police Board, saying officers were disciplined only 35 percent of the time when she started but the number grew to 73 percent by the time she was gone."

“I have worked tirelessly on police reform and accountability,” Lightfoot said. “I don’t think there’s anyone in the city who’s taken on a tougher assignment and tougher time than I have.”

Lightfoot served as president of the disciplinary board for less than three years, and during that time a total of 47 discharge cases were either heard by the panel or resolved before a hearing was held. In the comparable time period before Lightfoot took over, the board dealt with 63 discharge cases.

The hard count of officers fired increased incrementally from 19 during the comparable period before Lightfoot to 21 during her time as president. In percentage terms, however, that translated into a big jump because the board heard fewer cases than in the past.

To be clear, the lower number of cases that reached the board during Lightfoot’s time was beyond her control. After allegations of officer misconduct have been made and vetted by one of several investigative bodies, it’s up to the police department’s superintendent to recommend cases to the board. But the fact that these variables play such a large role in the percentage increase Lightfoot touted suggests it’s less a yardstick of her effectiveness as a disciplinarian and more of a math problem.

Samuel Walker, a professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and an expert on police accountability, told us so many factors affect police discipline data that it’s problematic to focus on any one when evaluating the performance of a department or those who oversee it.

"It’s a statistical swamp," he said.

Our ruling

Lightfoot’s tweet said that under her watch, the percentage of police board hearings that resulted in an officer being fired increased from 37 percent to 72 percent and that the share of discharge cases that ended because the cops involved decided to resign rather than face the board doubled from 15 percent to 30 percent.

Those figures check out.

It’s worth noting, however, that the total number of discharge cases the board reviews is so small that just a minor increase in officer firings by the board translated into a huge increase in the share of cases that ended in dismissals.

Lightfoot’s claim itself is accurate, but it doesn’t do much to reinforce the self-portrait she is drawing on the campaign trail of a reformer who improved police accountability.

To Lori's credit she does have a robust platform and is proposing a lot of structural changes to further police accountability. I also like that she's not running away from any of the criticisms and has put some point for point responses on her website. Litigators are typically good at arguing and shes been showing those skills.

On the other hand, I've also heard the case be made that Lori's rhetoric has not matched her conduct.

Here's a quote from another attorney who is also good at arguing- Brendan Schiller:

To any of my friends that care about criminal justice issues please DO NOT VOTE FOR LORI LIGHTFOOT. She is probably the second worst option out of the 14 on those issues.Lightfoot was a federal prosecutor from 1996 to 2002, and in that short tenure managed to get reprimanded by a federal court of appeals for “professional misconduct” that resulted in the wrongful deportation of a defendant. The federal appeals court took the rare step of issuing a formal notice of disciplinary proceeding against Lightfoot in the form of a rule to show cause for Lightfoot’s “conduct unbecoming a member of the bar.” The case is Lindstrom v. Graber, 203 F3d 470 (7th Cir. 2000). With issues such as Chicago’s status as a sanctuary city and the use of the inaccuracy riddled gang database being central to this election, Lightfoot disqualified herself by engaging in misconduct in federal court in order to get someone deported.After her brief and troubled career at the Department of Justice, Lightfoot was hired by Mayor Richard M. Daley to head the Office of Professional Standards—the notoriously ineffective police misconduct department. Under Lightfoot’s tenure, reviews of claims of misconduct by notorious detectives Jon Burge and Rey Guevara were regularly found unfounded. In fact, OPS under Lightfoot was “widely viewed as a mechanism for protecting troubled officers” according to a 2010 Chicago Reader article. During her tenure 100 percent of all police involved shootings were found to be justified. OPS was so ineffective and corrupt it was eventually shuttered and replaced by the Independent Police Review Authority in 2007.In 2009, while in private practice Lightfoot headed the defense team of Chicago Police Officer Paul Powers who was caught on video tape drunken and off-duty beating civilians in front of Jefferson Tap. Lightfoot’s private practice from the mid 2000s until 2013 consisted largely of defending accused police officers. For instance, Lightfoot was on the defense team that lost the case of Christina Eilman, who was arrested at Midway Airport during a mental health crises, and then was released without assistance, abducted, sexually assaulted and thrown off a 7-story floor window. After earning a living defending police misconduct, Lightfoot was tapped by Rahm Emmanuel in 2015 to head the Chicago Police Board. Lightfoot consistently protected police involved in misconduct while on the police board. For instance, after IPRA recommended that Chicago Police Officer Dante Servin be fired for murdering 22-year-old Rekia Boyd, Lightfoot and the police board decided to allow Servin to resign so that he could keep his pension. During the hearing, Lightfoot notoriously disrespectfed Boyd’s family.In a 2016 Police Board hearing Lightfoot chastised the families of Ronald Johnson, Rekia Boyd and Bettie Jones (all victims of police shootings) because Lightfoot thought the families were being too emotional. Lightfoot even threatened to have the families physically removed from the meeting it they did not stop being so emotional.There are candidates that have an actual history of being progressive on criminal justice reform issues. Lightfoot is not one of those candidates. Please do not vote for her.

? I'm sensing a lot of intolerance of differing opinions here. Which is what I agreed with in Cooper's "echo chamber" point he made in the other thread. It would be nice if we could discuss the pros and cons of the different candidates without jumping to showing disdain for the persons making the arguments, or accusing them of bad faith. I think theres valid criticisms and strengths of both candidates and I wouldn't be so intolerant of the discussion itself.